Choose1 markBoth boards
Which sentence is correctly punctuated?
Show the mark scheme and the examiner note
Answer: A
- The clause "which had trained for six months" can be lifted out
- It is bracketed by a comma at each end
- A. The team, which had trained for six months, won the final in Gaborone. — Correct: the parenthetical clause is closed by a comma at both ends.
- B. The team, which had trained for six months won the final in Gaborone. — Only the opening comma is present. A parenthetical clause needs both.
- C. The team which had trained for six months, won the final in Gaborone. — The comma has been moved to the wrong place, breaking the subject from its verb.
- D. The team which had trained for six months won the final in Gaborone, — A comma at the end of a complete sentence is a comma splice waiting to happen.
Examiner technique: Punctuation pairs: brackets, dashes and paired commas all need two ends. Scanning a sentence for unmatched pairs catches most of these before you have thought about meaning.